Electricity deregulation certainly benefitted the folks in Houston who pushed for it. Everyone else? Not so much. Thanks, Mr. Hebert. Oh, and thanks Mr. Lott, as well. He was your boy, wasn't he?
"There were all kinds of businessmen down there in their smartest suits waiting, like anyone else, for the chance to go back and talk to their legislators about this bill," said Bunting, whose Senate office door opens into the common waiting room.
"In Delaware, you know, those guys are almost like sports stars, and they were coming up or down to little Dover to talk to their legislators about how important this was," he said.
That star power overwhelmed opposition from the state's public advocate, Patricia Stowell, and the late Robert J. McMahon, the chairman of the Public Service Commission. Both warned that small power users might never see the lower rates that deregulation proponents touted.
As it turned out, competition has not developed for small consumers. Delaware homeowners now face a May 1 increase of 59 percent as electric rates frozen in 1999 rise to the level of the free market created by deregulation.
The General Assembly returns Tuesday after a six-week break with a slew of proposals on the drawing boards to address the big increase, including possible phasing of the increase and re-regulation of electricity sales.
The environment is hostile now, but back in 1999, just about everyone loved the idea of deregulation.
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